Smash!
by Memphis Lupine
Summary: [VxM AU] In the year AD 1938, the Great Depression is drawing to a close and the threat of global war is not yet thought 'realistic.' For a city in New York, organized crime, showgirls, and the occasional murder is all a day in the life. [WIP]
1. Opening

Smash!  
by Memphis Lupine  
--~--  
The diner was a crisper brightness than it had been a mere two months before, slick white replacing the grime of past decay as the nation finally seemed to be heading steadily away from the depression. Faded aprons were discarded, now, for ironed uniforms, stiff blouses tucked into small, but chaste, skirts as waitresses moved in quivering high heels through the establishment, checking off orders on the legal pads held tightly in hands still rough from other, more strenuous jobs needed for survival. The atmosphere was humid, a cloying hint of spring folding into the familiar weightiness of summer, and it pervaded the brightly lit diner though the dented air conditioning strove to banish the coming heat. Sunlight had long since slipped at the heels of night's speckled darkness, and he found need to blink in the shocking brightness filling the place.  
  
Still, he was glad to be rid of the dry west, free of the ever-shifting sands and dust plaguing yet the southwest and the other coast of the country. He could feel the dirt trapped under his coarse fingernails, an accumulated brown that hardly stood out from the shaded tan he had developed, one that passed directly over the golden honey so desired by the public and into the stress of constant work under a flaming sun. A dark swath of hair, highlighted darkest blue by its sheer pitch, added to the simple, almost intimidating appearance. He knew exactly what he wanted and, three desperate showers to peel off dirt and a hasty rental of an automobile used to drive God knew how many miles cross-country later, he was not going to let anything stand in his way.   
  
Not even, he forced his willful thoughts to bow down to essential bodily needs, the handsome girl with long golden brown hair tucked in a neat loop at the base of her neck by a blue ribbon, seated as pretty as you please on one of the cherry-topped stools at the sleek counter rimming the center of the place. "A water," he stated bluntly to the harried woman, a plump redhead, behind the counter, taking a seat next to the tall girl he had noted, "and a pack of cigarettes." He used girl to refer to his quiet unknowing companion mentally, as she looked not a day older than twenty, and the odd hat she sported, a round disk lined with frills and a streamer of silky blue fabric, brought to mind old Victorian-style snapshots of dutiful toddlers lined up in jolly England. Her entire outfit, he committed to memory as he accepted the clear container of water and the thin box of cigarettes, was smooth and delicately laced, the skirt pale and mildly layered.   
  
"Hello!" the girl said cheerfully and he choked on his water, eyes widening at her unbidden speaking as his mind raced, alarmed, to figure out if he had stared a bit too long at her. "I'm Melissa Saralee Thompson," she continued in an open voice, picking with her silver fork at a half-eaten slice of cheesecake proudly sitting before her. He translated the soft accent in her voice, a lilting 'ah' becoming 'I' with the resuscitation of old memories, and immediately recognized the warmth of Southern speech.  
  
"Hello," he answered with a small smile, grudgingly giving in to his longing to talk with another human being and the tingling in his legs that informed him the limbs were going to sleep. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Thompson," and he injected every bit of the legendary Italian charm he possessed, his smile bordering on rakish. "What brings you to the north?" Though the woman behind the counter enviously spotted his intentions a good mile or nine away, the belle seated at his left obliviously danced around it, her wide lips splitting easily into a broad expression of happy congeniality.  
  
"I got a lovely letter from an old friend of mine," she answered, leaving him a bit surprised but nonetheless still in a good mood, and she snapped open the gold-hued knobs of her small hand-purse, "and she was so urgent that I come!" She pulled a twice-folded letter, safely locked within the confines of its original envelope, out and flipped its corners away from the resigned center, handing it to him. Not being a man to forego the opportunity to share space with a woman, and, besides, she was contagiously friendly, he obliged her and leaned closer to read the writing on the addressing label.   
  
He very nearly choked upon coming across a name far more familiar to him than that of his current fellow conversationist, but disguised it with a quick smile when she glanced at him, curious, with large eyes reminiscent of a doe. "What did she need you to come all the way to New York for?" he said, taking any concerned words away with the question.  
  
"Oh, it's such a wonderful thing!" she cheered, hurriedly wiggling the faint parchment from inside the envelope and unfolding it with something akin to sisterly pride. Holding the letter aloft, a smile that could light half the diner glowing on her face, she gestured to the unadorned handwriting and stated, "Her dream is coming true!" Before he could reply with something about cliché turns of speech, she continued, beaming all the while, "And I told my father I just had to come see her, as it isn't everyday that one's sorority sister gets to sing at a place like the Silver Bell, you surely know. He agreed and, by golly, here I am, on my way to see her debut! I even remembered to call up and reserve a room at the Southeast Winchester Hotel for a week or so." And then, in deflated retrospect, she sighed, her smile fading into a pouting frown, "But I had to buy a slice of cheesecake and I missed the bus when it left after the stop. I couldn't just go to the washroom, though, as it would have been terribly rude for me to not try some of the dessert here, and I was mighty hungry in any case."  
  
"Is that so," he murmured, taking the letter gently from her loosely firm grip and scanning its contents swiftly, noting key words and places written in a slightly bolder print than other things. "The Silver Bell?" he echoed, and she nodded, somewhat puzzled, forking a tiny bite of her cheesecake into her mouth and working part of a butchered strawberry lying on the plate in with it. "Well," he couldn't help but grin at her, and she returned the expression without realizing it, "it just so happens I'm headed to Winchester. I need to visit my sister there and I could take you to the hotel."  
  
"Oh!" Melissa gasped, an indescribably pleased look sweeping her features into brilliant joy. "That would be ever so kind of you!" As he downed the rest of his drink and slipped the plain cigarette carton into his breast pocket, she once again grew somber, touching her chin thoughtfully with one long index finger. "But my mama always said it was awful impolite to impose on someone else when you're supposed to take care of yourself," she contradicted her earlier excitement, her slight eyebrows merging together in hopeless upset.  
  
"Your mother sounds like a wonderful woman," he spoke wryly, moving casually off his stool and stretching out the dead weight of his legs, and she nodded in devout agreement with his sentiment, "but my own mother taught me it was even more impolite to leave a lady alone when I could be busy helping her." He bowed fractionally, holding his work-calloused hand out for hers, and he was startled to feel the same roughness on the skin of her palm, indicating a compromise she must have made at some point, sacrificing Southern pride for manual labor. It was upsetting to recognize even women were forced to do hard work in times such as this, but he merely helped her down from her stool, acknowledging her grateful smile. "It would be an honor to escort you, madam."  
  
She giggled and, folding both letter and envelope to place inside her purse before clicking it shut, took his offered arm, striding toward the glass exit. "How very kind of you," she informed him as he led her around the bulky front of the black rental car, popping the passenger door open for his unexpected comrade on the travel north. "My brothers were so insistent that all men from up north were ruthless scalawags, but you're such a pleasant person. Perhaps ya'll are gentlemen, even to stranded women you've only just met."  
  
"Don't be so quick to assume anything about anyone," he replied in a serious, joking manner, stooping in the driver's seat and closing his door. She folded her hands primly in her lap, blinking sweetly, innocently, as she mulled over his words. "Not all of us Yankees are scalawags, but neither are all of us gentlemen." He flashed a smile, one verging on flirtatious, but simply settling for warm, and twisted the key in the ignition, moving the car forward gingerly onto the main road. "But for me, I have the blood of Italy in my veins, and it would be a crime to let a stranded woman suffer, Miss Thompson."  
  
"Milly," she corrected automatically, her eyes twinkling with some inner sense of humor that was simultaneously pleasing and bewildering. "And what should I call you?"  
  
"Nicholas D. Wolfwood," he answered, his lips twitching in a cat-like smile, the name resting on his tongue in a manner close to foreign. He was used to using pseudonyms and to brandish his true name was a rare thing indeed, but he was more than confident the innocent that was Melissa Saralee Thompson would know it.  
  
"How do you do, Nicholas D. Wolfwood," she greeted cordially, the proper sound of her sentence ruined by the happy pitch of her voice. After a moment of comfortable silence, stirred only by the rhythmic clanking of the engine and the muffled hum of tires spinning over chipped pavement, lit by the waxen moon and the studded glitter of stars, she questioned, in a slow voice, "Did you pay the woman at the bar, Mister Wolfwood?"  
  
He grinned in the dark of the car.  
  
--~--  
  
Disclaimer: If I owned anything but this story, the idea, and so forth, then I wouldn't technically have to write fanfiction. However, such is not the case, but I don't mind, because I get to write fanfiction anyway!  
  
Author's Notes: Besides having written the prologue in about fifteen minutes around midnight, I doubt I have much of an excuse if it isn't particularly well done. Before someone points out the general badness of getting in a car with someone you've just met, keep in mind that this is not set in the present day, but the 1930s, when it was more or less safe to do so. (I wouldn't recommend it now, though.) As for Milly being Southern…well, it just fits, doesn't it? That and, my family having moved due to USAF orders once more, living in Mississippi has exposed me to Southern culture. Stereotypes aside, it is rather pleasant. (Outside of the high school, which is horrible.)   
  
Feedback: Encouraged. Pwease? 


	2. Continuing the First Movement

Smash!  
by Memphis Lupine  
--~--  
She had slipped into a cozy sleep perhaps an hour into the drive, pillowing her cheek on her cradled hands. The honey brown halo of her hair, long forgotten by the laced hat wrinkled in her lap, pressed against the window by her side, eyes tilted to the elongated front of the automobile. Eyelashes tickled her face, dark gold on palest peach, and she was the image of childish innocence as she slept, long limbs tucked carefully in so as not to be in the way. The moonlight brushed over her, glowing on the white length of the dress she wore, and it stole whatever dreams had captured her fancy amidst the past three or four hours. A soft sigh escaped her lips and she shifted her weight slowly, relying a little more on the smooth glass of the window.  
  
Nicholas echoed the sentiment, yawning wide enough to threaten the general safety of his jaw, though it made a cracking noise but once. He shook his head doggedly, fingers tightening about the wheel as he strove to cast off the drowsy numbness his senses were gradually being absorbed by. "Two more miles," he told himself firmly, keeping his voice low out of respect for the tall girl, "just two more miles." He blew air out noisily, hazarding glances at the shadowed trees lining the road like proud warriors ever watching, and he fervently wished he could light one of the cylinders in the carton by his heart. Unfortunately, as he saw with some relief the sudden sharpness of the city line fast approaching and noted the heavy clouds of promised rain advancing on the moonlight, he had strong suspicion he'd crash the car trying to light it.  
  
A low growl, almost indiscernible over the clanking and jolting of the automobile, sounded from the quiet world outside the simple warm one within, and he narrowed dark blue eyes at the clouds. "Oh hell no, don't you start raining on me," he breathed dangerously, gauging the short distance left until he merged into southwest Winchester. The lights came abruptly brighter, flaring shades of gaudiness coating the tawdry buildings, and he felt an unperceived knot of tension slowly unravel as the city limits were breached with one final leap of the automobile.   
  
Driving along the travesty filled streets of downtown Winchester, he felt the kind of tranquility that comes naturally with a return to one's homeland. A grin of varying emotions curved his lips behind the faint darkness of untrimmed whiskers and he made it a game as he sought out the memory of the hotel to label each business he remembered. Mostly bars stood out prominently in his mind, cheap establishments with equally cheap beverages, and he drummed his fingers along the stretched hide on the steering wheel, spotting an intersection well paved by honking automobiles and giggling couples. The policeman, long resigned to his unenviable duty of directing traffic in the seedier part of town, waved his white glove for their side of the cross to stop, the silver whistle in his mouth shrieking an additional warning. Waxen streetlight glinted on the rows of golden buttons lining the officer's dark uniform and he looked about as deeply exhausted as the twilight-shaded man driving felt.  
  
A twinge of pity fell quickly to the heels of alarm, Nicholas' keen eyes catching the obscene perversion of a Victorian gown outfitting a woman strutting brazenly into the street toward him. The policeman showed remarkable apathy to her, and he experienced the oddest sense of regret mingled with relief, ethics warring with his familial occupation. On a different night, had he not been as tired and desperate for a cigarette, he might have taken the brothel woman's offer. Turning to face the policeman and praying he would motion them forward before she could finish crossing over, he came close to swearing at the tense knot gathering between his shoulder blades once more.  
  
From the corner of his eye, he could see the pure, unadulterated Victorian gown clasped cleanly around the slumbering woman hidden by the doorframe, and a form of residual guilt spurred him forward. He had seen several innocents lose that sanctity making them so unique, and even if he technically had only known Miss Melissa Thompson for a mere six hours, he would do his damnedest to see her safely to her hotel.   
  
The prostitute glowered for a moment at the tail end of the automobile fast abandoning her, clenching her fist and jaw irritatedly, before she spotted a new, inebriated potential customer. With a reluctant sigh, the policeman shifted his stance and blew the whistle a second time, motioning for traffic to switch roads.   
  
Thankfully, Milly had slept through the entire, more or less soundless ordeal, perfectly quiet except for the occasional muted sniffle. He snorted softly, mouth forcing cruelly open for another pained yawn that pulled the skin about his mouth tight, his eyes closing dangerously for the moment or two needed to complete it. The automobile swerved and he caught the wheel in a flash of desperation, quickly handling it in the opposite direction until the path had been righted and the first of a last pair of turns approached. Slowing carefully to politely allow a pair of stately men in tuxedos pass, their decorative canes swinging from gloved wrists and top hats a shining black under tall street lamps, Nicholas swept the automobile about the easy curve. The hotel filled his vision, a radiant shimmer from the vast amounts of lights circling it and glowing from its interior levels, and he promptly whistled lowly.  
  
The Southeast Winchester Hotel was a massive construct, curvaceous lattices and glowering gargoyles jutting out up and down the sheer height it sported. An envious twenty-four levels shone into the night sky, many of the windows lit though the hour fast approached half after midnight, and he reflected it had been a few levels shorter when he left the city. Careful to follow the curling road leading to the glorious front arches, the doors enameled glass streaked with iridescent light, he drank in the forgotten sight of women in furs and glittering evening gowns, men in starched black suits and elegant hats. He motioned for an overeager busboy to move to the side, shifting the automobile into a suitable braking stance and freezing its wheels in place before the arches. Gold light swamped the region, the velvet red carpet spread across the fresh sidewalk trampled from its twelve-hour shift, hidden beneath the protective sprawl of a wide awning posted on silver staffs.  
  
He allowed himself a scant few seconds of light dozing, tilting his head back so his loose shirt was drawn a bit around his torso, eyes closing to the world far too shortly. It took a forceful reminder of his passenger to stir him from the position and he rolled his head forward, sitting up and clipping the door open. He planted one foot outside, the rough leather skidding fractionally over the pebbled pavement, and he turned, placing one large hand gently on her broad, ivory-draped shoulder. Shoving with as much gentility as he had touched it, he moved her relatively swiftly into a blinking consciousness. "C'mon, we're at your hotel, honey," he said quietly, remembering how most people were unappreciative of loud voices upon waking.  
  
"Honey?" she murmured, twisting her back upright and blinking rapidly at the intrusion of aching light, tightening her fingers on the lapel of her hat. "Oh, are we eating?" she continued in the same distanced voice whilst she absently arranged the brimmed pillbox hat on her locks, white on browned gold. "I don't feel as if I've eaten."  
  
He laughed, a subdued chuckle, and stepped the rest of the way out of the driver's seat, digging in his pocket urgently as he pushed the door closed. Pulling a tinderbox from the trousers, he fought the carton temporarily for a single cigarette and popped the metal box open. Ten seconds of careful prying resulted in one match alighting with a small mandarin flame, the tip of the cigarette hanging from his thinned lips pressing into the bending heat. A whiff of smoke came from it and he clicked the box shut, flicking the match so it became a dulled, blackened splinter and tossing it to the lightly littered street.   
  
"Finally," he heard himself mutter, inhaling the whispering trickle of grey smoke and shifting to see Milly's progress. The same busboy motioned aside held his hand for her to grasp, the tip of his flamboyant crimson overcoat visible around the black front of the automobile, and she moved, accepting it thankfully. She spoke her thanks and plucked the small pouch of her purse from the seat, clapping the door into its locked place. "Have a good evening, Miss Thompson," he called, tipping his head and picking the cigarette from his mouth to speak clearly.   
  
She glanced at him, a flicker of surprise or something spearing through the sky blue orbs serving as crystal eyes, and she beamed a generously wide smile. Scooping the meager fabric of her modest skirt in her hands, she curtsied with startling grace, seemingly unaware of the red mark on her cheek brought by sleeping heavily on it. "My name is Milly, Mister Wolfwood," she cried, standing up and still wearing the powerful smile. "And may the good Lord bless you!" With that, she curtsied a second time and spun on her heel, alarming the busboy as he saw his aspirations to escort her through the door dissipate with her every confident motion.  
  
He grinned, knowing she was safer in the southeast section of Winchester than anywhere else, and, walking some distance from the awning, turned his gaze skyward, squinting up at the darkened heavens. The heady shades were broken only by flickering streams of lightning, streaks of yellowed white, and he felt a strong wetness strike his eyebrow, splitting in the dark hairs and causing his eyes to blink reflexively. Another clear pearl dripped out of the skies as an ominous grumble emerged, this one landing perfectly on the ember smoking tip of his cigarette and effectively muffling it. With a sigh, he plucked the cylinder away from his lips and let it plummet to the ground, crushing it under his foot. "Welcome home," he said wryly and set off back to the car.  
  
--~--  
  
"Those goddamned Nazis," someone voiced among the many, adding to the bloodshot fervor coloring one small, cluttered end of the bar in the Silver Bell's cousin, the Closet Ruby. The stage normally occupied with star-dotted showgirls was cloaked by the heavy drapes signifying the soon arrival of closing time, but the men continued to nurse their beloved alcohol. "League o' Nations ain't got one fig of a notion on how'ta take care of it." More than one man attempted an agreeing nod, with a sloppy, drunken method, and the speaker pounded his fist on the varnished counter. "And them Italians!" He made a derisive noise that was both rude and throaty, a phlegmatic sound of displeasure.  
  
The woman standing at the back of the counter, half shrouded by the deeply pooling shadows cast according to dimming lights, the fancy bulbs fading as the electricity was slowly cut for the business front, frowned. Her eyes sparked slate fire, sharp embers threatening but unseen due to the shadows. She dipped the cloth clutched tightly in her hands along the curves of stained glass mugs, swilling away foam and brown specks, pieces of chewing tobacco removed with a grimace. Those sleet greyed-blue eyes never left the cluster of men, a smoldering anger settling on the compact, slender frame of the small woman with fashionably bobbed ebon hair.   
  
"Italian pigs," another man snarled, his lips slowed by drink and forming the words sluggishly, "think th' can just g--," he swallowed to clear his mouth of the cotton stiffness, "get away with sleepin' with 'itler." He nearly toppled from his stool, blinking owlishly one eye followed by the other, and she spitefully flicked the radio playing mutely behind the bar into a noisier rabble. The easily recognizable tune of 'Star Dust' filled the air and the seven or eight men paused, staring and narrowing eyes to identify her.The tight-blouse and sleek skirt, long and swirling around her shins, identified her as the bartender's assistant, and little else could be determined.  
  
The first man shrugged dismissively and returned to more important matters. "If we Americans knew what we were doing," he declared loudly, to a clatter of obnoxious calls, "we'd send them Germans'n'Italians, and them damn Japs back over to their own countries so they can do what they wanna."  
  
When someone made a raucous agreement, an obscenity proudly tacked on to the traditional land of romance and Venice, the barmaid flicked the radio off and brandished one of the polished mugs as she might a gun. "The bar is closed!" she screamed, a cry pitched high enough to cease the crude chatter and grant a stunned silence. "And you would do well to remember that the Italian people built this city from the ground up!" One or two noted her coloring and dark hair as she stepped forward, face burning livid shades of overwhelming flame, and a rude comment was mumbled underneath breath. She exploded, slamming the mug down on the counter almost hard enough to shatter the hefty glass as she furthered bluntly: "Get out!" and then: "Dollar-and-five, each, and I don't care how much you need the money, you drank it!" Gone was the usual tab or bargain deal sentenced with the Great Depression, a kindness to help those who needed it.  
  
"Italian bitch," a jeer came and she came close to snarling, her fingers barely kept from straining for the revolver kept hidden in one of the cubbyholes at her back. The coats, cheap ones patched for lack of money wastefully used on drink, were ripped from the dented hanger near the door and a flood of coins was showered on the counter. As the door slammed at the heels of the last, she scattered the pieces of metal with a sweep of her hand, sending them hurling to the floor.  
  
She knew she would need to pick them up in a moment, to count and insure the right amount had been paid, but the adrenaline, the ethnic outrage within her, was still too strong. Breathing exercises memorized to control her easily triggered temper came to mind and she locked her arms at the base of her spine. Leaning into a backwards arch she stretched, inhaling through clenched teeth in hopes of calming her furiously pounding heart. As she did so, she could make out the distinct sound of the door sliding open and she snapped from her strenuously relaxing position. She reached back into the cubbyhole, slipping her small hand under the forest green wine bottle obscuring the glint of metal, and wrenched free the revolver. It took a remarkably short amount of time for her to swivel on her heel and point the barrel squarely at whatever imbecile had returned for whatever revenge.  
  
What she saw was her older brother raising an eyebrow at her and showing a sardonically amused smile.  
  
"My, my, what a charming sister I have," Nicholas announced, coming incredibly close to skimming a smirk, and she lowered the revolver with an exasperated groan. The pounded metal thumped on the inner counter, lowered for the bartenders, and she shared a friendly scowl.  
  
"I thought you were still in Utah," she spoke, deciding to avoid sharing her recent encounter with closed minds. "Earning money with a federal job and so on. You could have sent us a letter." She smiled, then, a tiny curve of her lips at the corner, and she leaned over the counter to offer him a hug. As she was a good half-foot shorter than he, it took some stretching and shifting of weight to toes in order to accomplish.  
  
"Wanted to surprise you," he responded, hugging back and letting her go before the bar cut through her abdomen. "And the legit job was killing me. I hate the west, it's still stuck in the Dust Bowl." He grimaced, frowning darkly and scraping at loose trousers tanned with scouring browns. "You breathe and eat and drink dust, sand, and dirt. It felt like I'd fallen into a sand dune and couldn't climb back out."  
  
"Pleasant," she commented, picking up her rag and finishing up one of the mugs, shining away a spot of sticky beer. "Papa wanted to know if you got married. He and Mama were constantly nagging me to write you about some pretty Italian girls here."  
  
"I came back for the family," Nicholas found need to remind her. "I do not need a woman at this time in my life." He exhaled, a quiet implosion of warm air hitting a night-chilled atmosphere, and added roughly, his voice shifting into gruff tones, "And Dominique is your mother, not mine, Meryl."  
  
"True," Meryl conceded, stacking the mugs together and patterning them for the wash duty in the morning. "But she is my mama, and I don't want you talking bad about her." It hung as a teasing threat and she smiled again, saying, "I'm glad to see you again, Nicky."  
  
"And you, too," he agreed, sliding onto the stool warm yet from the man who abandoned it earlier, a nameless individual sent back into the night he had come from. "What's this I hear about you singing at Dono's place?"  
  
"Ah!" she cried, pointing a finger accusingly at him, her elbow pressed to her hip as she scrunched an eye up at him. "Who told you, the fink?" And then she laughed, her elbow still trapped at her side and her finger tipping over as she gave rare way to an impulse.   
  
--~--  
  
Limbs, lengthy and strong, slid down to the stabilizing floor of the train, toes curling in the cages of shined boots. The man was tall, a lanky sort of leanness that needed to hunch in order to bend out of the seat. Embroidered, ornate decorations colored in shades of red spiraled with gold threads in Asian tapestries covered the seats, curved iron backs to them and globes of delicately carved light swaying with the inertia of the train's halt. He yawned, his mouth creaking open just the smallest bit, and he ran a hand through wildly spiked blonde hair, the result of too much shampoo and odd follicles. The crimson rain slicker he wore ended up having been a wise decision and he watched the steady downpour on one side of the train with nothing short of fascination. He regretted the common sense design of train stations, with the train emptying its belly of passengers under the stretching roof of the building in place of the slippery rain.   
  
Prying his scuffed suitcase from the overhanging bins, chiseled wood panels sliding up to grant him access, he followed the yawning others out, stepping grandly down the trio of carpeted steps. Walking a suitable distance from the train car into the elegant structure designed with an Italian beauty in mind, he dropped his suitcase to the ground. He ignored the sight he made, a man of unusual height and blonde hair in long spikes, dressed in a rumpled brown suit under the stretched rain slicker, and tilted his head back. A deep inhale of the eastern air, he welcomed the excited niggling in his stomach at the foreign smell of moisture that clogged his lungs. The scent of rain was stronger than the dust stubbornly clinging to his suit and it pervaded more than the smog of cities.  
  
He grabbed his suitcase up again and jogged over the mosaic tiling, tripping at the foot of the marble stairs leading up straight to the earliest morning Winchester. Catching his balance, he planted his free hand firmly on the banister splitting the staircase in half and sped his stiff legs faster. The glittering revolving door, made silver by the rain streaking it, beckoned and he checked his speed, slowing enough to fit into an empty space and push eagerly forward. Emerging into the rain, he avoided opening his suitcase under the little dry space under the ledge above the entrance, too entranced by the downpour to remember the rain cap tucked between ledgers of paper and a few pairs of trousers.  
  
Into the rain he stepped, careful, slow movements into the puddles on the sidewalk, and he saw the buggies slipping by along wet roads, driving slowly for safety. Long cab fronts, hoods pulled up, and a steady blend of white or black, the automobiles were scarce in the insecurity of rain.   
  
He loved it, his chest swelling as if he might explode, and he threw his arms to the side, cheering without words into the rain. Water filled his mouth, glorious water in opposition of the shifting sand in Nevada, and he spit it out happily, willing to face the opportunity to drown. "Good morning, Winchester!" he bellowed, giddiness lighting his entire body with the joyous glow slowly reclaiming the country in place of darkness. Quieter, in a whisper meant for his ears alone, as if speaking it louder might jeopardize it beyond recognition, he added, "I'm writing you a Great American Novel."  
  
--~--  
  
Disclaimer: Nope. Don't own 'em, according to the current copyright laws. I own this story and all the good (or bad) things that entails. Like OOC.  
  
Author's Notes: Oh, geez, Quincy-san, I didn't mean to sound rude with the reviews=chapter thing. *winces* I've avoided doing that in the past, but I've encountered difficulty posting fics in the past two months. Long story: AOL decided that 'Mature Teen' parental controls could not access 'Document Manager,' so I've been having to get special permission at school from teachers and the librarians to upload chapters/stories through the school's ISP. Sometimes I'm not allowed to use a disk (which is, after all, the only way I can move a chapter from my computer to the school's), or the library's being used by a class, or something else I happening. So, overall, it's a hassle at times trying to get a story updated, and if nobody seems to want me to update a story, I'm not going to go through the stress of working it out at school. 0o; If that makes sense…But, in any case, I apologize deeply for sounding such.   
  
Expository chapter, introduction of characters, and an expression of my inability to communicate past eras. I'll be working on that…  
  
No! Don't praise Ryan! He's an awful Muse, really, he is. *glares at Ryan* He throws bowling balls at me, but at least he kills my writer's block. Which, actually, is rather helpful. Unfortunately, he never does anything else Muse-like, the JERK! *yells at Ryan and is promptly beaned by a bowling ball*  
  
The references to the 'Axis of Evil' (as alter dubbed) were slanted anti-Italian, which may or may not be a falsification of pre-WWII attitudes. Certainly there was a strong anti-Japanese and anti-German emotion running through the country, but Italy was also a threat (due to Mussolini). The significance of the drunks' babbling is that this story begins in late spring (May-ish), and Mussolini met with Hitler in May of 1938 to show the unity of the axis between Rome and Berlin. I, of course, mean nothing by the remarks (just to be safe). I love the Italian people as my best friend is half, and I grew up with her loud, boisterous Italian family. Lovely people.  
  
Many thank-yous to my reviewers and an apology for the shortness of the chapter. And the length of the author's notes…I'll thank you each personally next chapter, okay? *beams* 


	3. Confrontation with Occupation

Smash!  
by Memphis Lupine  
--  
  
At precisely eight o'clock in the morning, as the thick rain clouds stoutly refused to allow the sun ample room to stretch fiery fingers out, the Silver Bell opened for the weekend. Dono was by no means a foolish man and he had long discovered that, come the end of a week of work, many men were more than willing to waste a minor portion of their paycheck for drink and women. It was, he supposed as he rapped his knuckles on the dull wood of the door leading to the changing room, an escape from the stress of overtime and such to earn the money needed. When one of the girls yelled an incomprehensibly welcome, he wrapped his hand around the door handle, twisted the knob, and flung it open with a bang.  
  
"Topaz, where's m'brush?" a slight woman in a red dress harkening to the flapper style popular in the twenties demanded, sweeping her naturally red hair over her shoulder and glowering as she swiveled in her heels. "I can't go out lookin' like this, y'know?" The girl in question, a lithe blonde with a flashy gold dress and a yellow hankerchief swathed about her neck, tossed the toiletry and she caught it.   
  
"Hello, girls," Dono rumbled, thumbing his tie and the standard pinstripe suit folded over it. A chorus of greetings came from the ten odd girls, some glancing at him, others smiling, while a few otherwise ignored him. "Are you dolls about ready to go out and wow 'em?" He flashed his infamous grin, a charmingly nasty smirk that he used on most everyone, and the girl in red, stage-named Ruby, straightened from her quick chore. A mass of red curls went to her back once more and she looked at him warily.  
  
"Mister Dono, sir," she began, hands tucking around the curve of her small hips, "you seen Sapphire? We gotta get on stage soon and she ain't here yet."  
  
"Sapphire is always late," a green-coded girl, black hair bundled into a whispery braid, snorted carelessly, fixing the faux necklace wrapped around the stretch of her throat. "It's nothing to be worried about, you know she ain't gonna come unless she manages to kick that sleazebag she been sleepin' with out on his lazy ass." A thick tube of lipstick was quickly stolen from the girl on her left, who made a disgruntled sound and merely plucked a different tube from her beaded purse, and she, obviously known as Emerald, wound it out, putting it to the pout of her lower lip and sweeping it across. "And you know what those picture girls like to say: the show must go on!"  
  
"How very considerate of you, Emmy," said Dono wryly, swiping a hand through his greased hair and nodding acknowledgement to each of the quietly gossiping girls as they filed out in tiptoeing steps behind the stage. "Speaking of the show, it starts in less than a minute," and he checked his golden pocket-watch in a rather pointed manner, "so I'd hurry if I was you."  
  
More than one girl squealed anxiously, to be hushed by unappreciative older dancers, and they bit lips as they all vanished into the lifted wood held dark by closed curtains. Staring at the ticking hands of his watch, he stumped the other hand into his pocket and waited patiently, working his jaw steadily as if a piece of tobacco was clenched between his molars. The last resonant tick as the second hand struck the final note was timed exactly with the explosion of brass instruments and an ironically heavenly chorus of showgirls, and he smiled with satisfaction, snapping the slender lid over the pearl face and stuffing it into the pocket it was kept in. "Enjoy the show, boys," he said to himself, and he abandoned the littered room, closing the door at his back.  
  
--  
  
The sun's trickling light passed through the half-closed curtains sewn together of a filmy cloth reminiscent of glittered mists, and she wrinkled her face into the uneven folds of her pillow, one arm tugging around it to hold it closer to her cheek. As she tried to snatch whatever bits of peaceful warmth were left to her while reality slowly gained on her, she kicked her small legs from under the swathed quilt and prodded the floor with ginger toes. Though it was nearly summer, a bit of cold still managed to drift out of the darkness beneath her bed, and she disliked the smooth feel of polished wood under her bare feet in any case. A pair of satin slippers were found by her wandering feet, and she squirmed her heels into place, pulling eyes open reluctantly and slowly moving into a sitting position.   
  
Adjusting the collar of her nightgown, she rolled her head from one shoulder to the other and cupped her hand over her mouth as a small yawn tipped out her throat. For a moment she remained motionless, fingers playing over her chin and the other hand palmed over the wrinkled sheets, and then she popped her head forward with a defiant snap, yanking the pillow into a nondescript flatness. She stood from the bed and jerked the sheets expertly, folding them and tucking the quilt around, and grasping the lapels of the curtains to pull them fully open. The stream of light that shone instantly over the roof opposing their house caused her to blink and squint a bit in order to fully recover, and she rocked back on her heels in a satisfied manner.  
  
Out the door she went, crossing the carpeting rolled down the upper hall's wide corridor, and slipped a hand over the honey banister as she crept agilely, quietly, down the steps. "Good morning," she called to the few people crowded into the large den, cousins of intimidating presence and swarthy skin much like she. One nodded, absorbed in an elaborate game of chess with another as the third checked through small columns posted in simple type on the morning's newspaper, and she paused at the bottom of the stairs, glancing across into the sitting room on the other side. "Ben, you seen my folks?" she called.  
  
The man perusing the newspaper looked up, dark-rimmed eyes showcasing his frequent insomnia and lack of physical attention, and he set his sharpened pencil down, poking a finger toward the swinging door that led to the kitchen. "Your pop is having it out with Nicky," he informed her in a tired voice, lowering his hand and picking the pencil up once more. "It's kinda ugly, no place for you."  
  
"No place for a woman, you mean," she corrected without a trace of meanness, though she did take the time to grant him a particularly unpleasant look, and he paid little heed. Sweeping over the floor in her trailing nightgown and satin slippers, she tipped a few dark strands behind her ear and laid one hand firmly on the swinging door. She pushed it open firmly and, quite effectively, entered the rather tempestuous arguments that often occurred when her father and half-brother were in the same room as one another.  
  
"--an't even write to your old man, tell him you're coming home after, what, three years, four?" her father was currently expounding, pacing in dithering circles like an animal too enraged to even walk normally. Occasionally, he struck his fist into his open palm, gnashing teeth with furious hopelessness, the bottoms of his trousers passing over the wood floor as he gave her mother the kind of look that demanded support or an answer. Dominique simply continued patiently dipping filthy dishes into the bubbles in the sink, scrubbing daintily at stains as she split her attentions between family dysfunctions and the reruns of 'Painted Dreams' pouring from the radio.   
  
"Good morning, Papa," Meryl said pleasantly, knowing better than to get caught in the argument. She offered a kiss to her mother, who smiled in quick welcome and returned to listening anxiously to Irene and Sue's conversation. Her father paused for a few seconds to give her the kind of hand gesture that meant he was aware of her presence, and she pulled out one of the slender-backed chairs settled around the small round table. "Nicholas," she stated in a calm voice laced with sarcasm.  
  
"Hn," he uttered distantly, scouring the surface of a small Luger pistol with a dirtied rag to clean away the streaks of powder dotting the metal tubing. Several firearms in various stages of disarray and assembling were scattered over the honeyed wooden surface, boxes of bullets left haphazardly open and a few shells rocked with slowing motion within the makeshift maze. "Morning," he added after a moment, dropping the rag to the table and locking the Luger back into place. Glancing down its length, he judged the distance between the pistol's mouth and her forehead, and she took it in as normal, pressing a fingertip to her eye.  
  
"You ashamed of your family's own name?" her father resumed ranting, snapping his arms around wildly, his nose twitching with his rage. "First you go off on your own, leave the family, to take some legit job when we doing fine in this city we built from the ground up, and then when we do get word-by-mouth from your cousin - who, by the way, asked for permission to traipse away from our place - we hear you not even keeping the family name! You're Nicholas Wolfwood, boy," he snarled, yanking one of the chairs out and plopping down on it with great anger, "not a Nicolae Chapel, whatever the hell that is." He grabbed one of the exposed weapons and one of the worn rags piled in the table's smooth center, rubbing fiercely at the metal.  
  
"I did what I had to, Papa," Nicholas answered in a carefully neutral tone, locking the butte of a different firearm firmly into place. "And, besides, I can't be your son forever. I do need to make my own decisions, form my own identity." He checked the sights of the rifle he held and frowned, setting it back to the table gently, oiled fingers absently moving to the open collar of his black shirt and thumbing the buttons into their adjoining slits. "And I bust my gut working to keep from getting canned, and I'd like it if you'd stop being sore as hell at me. I came back, didn't I?" His voice slipped out of his control near the end of his reply, twisting into a poisonous bit of sarcasm, and their father swelled up in a way similar to the zeppelins common in the coastal skyline.   
  
"Well," Dominique interjected with a sweet smile, setting down a large silver dish of English toffees she had thoughtfully kept near the sink in case of an emergency such as this, "do keep in mind, Papa, that he didn't marry one of those Chinese girls out there in the west." She smiled at Nicholas, and he offered her a thin-lipped mirror of her expression that was cold and, in general, unresponsive. Her smile faded and she cleared her throat, watching with a careful eye as her husband was derailed by the sweets he loved so. "Meryl," she switched tracks, taking on a reproving tone, "you oughtn't be wearing your nightgown outside of your room."  
  
"Of course, Mama," she replied automatically, gingerly taking one of the toffees and prying off the thin paper twisted around it. Popping it in her mouth, she studied her half-brother's jerking motions and considered the oddity of the weapons currently littering the kitchen, and groaned mentally. "You have a job?" she asked, pushing the toffee with her tongue into the side of her mouth, her words only marginally muffled.  
  
"Yeah," he grunted, dropping the rag a second time and scraping his chair back noisily over the wooden floor, and he winced apologetically to the trio of glares he received. "I won't be using these, though," and he gestured loosely over the arsenal preventing Meryl from her breakfast. "Which reminds me, I'll be using the Thompson." A flicker of amusement took hold of his swarthy features, twitching the corners of his mouth into a faint, ironic grin that caught his younger sister's attention quickly though her father merely persisted in glowering. "And that," he added distinctly, accepting the wettened cloth Dominique passed to him and hurriedly removing the oil stains on his hands, "reminds me in turn: your friend, Miss Melissa Saralee, is at the Southeast Winchester Hotel."   
  
"When did she arrive?" Meryl cried, startled, and the toffee caught in the roll of her tongue, garbling her question and choking her momentarily. "Aw, damn," she muttered, the words lost as she struggled to swallow the half-melted toffee and finally succeeded. Eyes watering, she glared weak fury at his smirking face.   
  
"We happened to meet at one of those diners down in Maryland, and I gave her a ride up," he answered with that damned smirk still on his face. "She mentioned she was visiting a friend by the name of Meryl Wolfwood who was starring in a show, and I thought to myself, why, that just so happens to be the name of my baby sister."  
  
"I'm not a baby, you punk," she retorted. "And, by the way, thanks for telling me earlier." She granted him a particularly dirty look, and he laughed, lifting his jacket from the hook near the door and quickly buttoning it up over his shirt. He habitually undid the cuffs, adjusting the buttons and fixing them over the end of the jacket's sleeved arms.  
  
"Turn that damned Irish crap off," growled their father behind the sanctity of a large revolver, and their mother sighed reluctantly, clipping the radio off and plunging the kitchen into silence as Nicholas reached for his standard fedora. The door was twirled open with a quiet creak, and he exited into the smug dirt of the early morning Winchester air, as a sighing rain drifted silently down.  
  
--  
  
In retrospect, it was probably one of the many foolish things he was prone to doing in the morning before night had given way to the sun's creeping light, and he knew he had no one to blame but himself for the painful knot at the base of his spine. Knowing that did nothing for the sheer uncomfortable feel of it and, having checked out of the cheap motel after only three hours of dozing sleep in the lumpy bed, he tried his best to shift around in the seat. The airy bar was probably one of the better choices he had made, he thought happily while thumbing the sheets of yellowed paper delightfully blank of words and sipped at the mug of beer he had ordered.   
  
He swore mentally it had nothing to do with the chorus line currently on stage, even though he kept glancing at them through the silver white of his glasses, and he tapped the sharpened tip of the pencil he held against the paper. Forcing his attention back to the creative matter at hand, he scraped the lead over the rough paper a few times in aimless lines, and mulled over what to write. Fingers tugged the mug closer to him and he peered into the dark amber depths, consulting his liquor for answers to questions he was still unaware of. He sketched his name a few times in his wisping handwriting, the letters long and thin, curved into narrow arrangements of the words that accompanied him as an eternal label. Rubbing at his eyes under the moon ellipses of his clear glasses, he exhaled and swore at the creative process in general.  
  
The airy blonde set his pencil down beside the small blade used to sharpen it, the hard nub of the grey rubber eraser resting in his jacket a small discomfort against his thigh. "Don't need to erase anything when you can't even figure out how to start," he grumbled, dipping his fingertip in the beer. The froth was popping, the bubbles reluctantly melting into the brown liquid, and he stuck the wettened finger into his mouth. Bitter taste speared the smallest part of his tongue, and he sighed, shaking his hand dismissively and taking a draught of it into his mouth, choking it down with a grimace.  
  
"Uck," he commented, sparing a brief wink at the waitress who looked at him curiously, "wine is so much better." Still, alcohol was alcohol, and he quickly emptied his chalky mug of the bitter drink, letting it drift into his gut and settle there in an ambiguous manner. Plucking the thin shaft of wood up once more, he doodled loose circles meaninglessly for a few seconds, unsure of what to do, what he wanted to impress on the world.   
  
Dropping it again, he shook the rubber lump out of his pocket and wielded it dangerously, attacking the shadows on the paper with a vengeance. Away went the spiraling circles, wiped away by flaked shavings, and he scrubbed his name off with a deep concentration crossing his pale features. The paper was once more made blank, and he smiled.  
  
Metaphorically, it made him blank, too, prepared him for a new start.  
  
With this in mind, he cheerfully dumped the eraser next to the rolling pencil and the warning razor, twisting in the upholstered booth to watch the chorus girls currently flashing their upper thighs to the men. After all, he thought philosophically, if it was there, why not? Thusly, he propped his elbows on the swell of his knees and dropped his chin into his laced hands, the light of the several kerosene lamps catching on the loose threads of his white shirt. He wore little in way of the fancier garb many of the other men in the establishment were sporting, a simple combination of a slightly browned shirt and wrinkled trousers that had seen frequent exercise in the various jobs taken in Nevada.   
  
He scratched idly at his hair, passing lean fingers through the gold yellow strands lining his scalp with their defined length, and he grinned, returning the smile the same waitress flashed in his direction. A rumble in his stomach reminded him of the state of his appetite, and he made a frantic, overreacting gesture for her to come over. The tall dark-haired woman nodded farewell to her customer and picked her careful way between the tables, clutching the pot of coffee like she might an unconscious shield.   
  
"Can I help you?" she asked politely, her delightfully tanned skin contrasting with the crisp folded white of her blouse and skirt.   
  
"Yes," he practically gasped, his chin hovering near the top of the table and his fingers grasping the shined wood as if it was the only thing preventing him from being trickled into nonexistence. "I need something to eat, and lots of it." Hopefully, he suggested, "A baker's dozen of butter rolls and doughnuts, separately, a double order of spaghetti-n-meatballs, something big with chicken in it, and a bottle of wine?"  
  
She blinked her almond eyes, pencil poised over the small notepad she was holding in the crook of her elbow, the nearly empty coffee pot dangling from her fingers. "Are you meeting someone, sir?" she asked politely, trying to connect the order with the slender man beaming cutely at her.   
  
"No," he explained. "I am trying to eat lightly, though." A frown crossed his face, and he straightened his back, pulling his sitting height up, and he asked, "Why, am I ordering the wrong things? The sign said this place has Italian food, and - oh, God, I entered the wrong restaurant!" He looked utterly horrified, the prospect of not being able to eat and therefore atone for his lack of sleep entering his mind with whispered terror, and he glanced at her, green eyes shimmering with comic fear.  
  
"No, no, don't worry, the Silver Bell serves food," she said hastily, waving her hand in a placating manner. He relaxed instantly, the same brightly sunny twist of his lips replacing his worry, and he absently picked his pencil up. "I'll, um, just go tell the chef." She began walking away, looked over her shoulder quickly and noted his longing look, and filched a small woven basket of five butter rolls from the table of a man who was wholly engrossed with the dancing girls. "Here," she paced back hastily and set it abruptly on the table, pinning the corner of his papers with it. "To tithe you over."  
  
He let her leave and sighed, pleased, nimbly selecting the largest one of the slick bits of airy baking and unceremoniously shoving its entirety into his mouth. "Oh, lovely," he sighed again, cheeks curved with his unabated smiling. "Such an aisling, lovely, lovely." He crammed two more into his mouth, swallowing the first and chewing the second dose, before he noticed several men were whispering amongst one another. A few glared at him, and he found he had the oddest feeling of 'run like hell, you dumb bastard.' Working his jaw very slowly, he reviewed what he had just said and the ethnicity that seemed to permeate the establishment he had chosen, and promptly broke into a cold sweat. "Oh, shit," he gulped in a garbled mumble, the rolls suddenly of the same consistency as moldy paste. Forcing them down, he clapped his hands together and reviewed his odds of making it out alive.  
  
Well, of course: he chose the booth furthest from the entrance, though, at the time, it had not seemed quite as potentially fatal. He was in the corner tucked near the bar, given a diagonal view of the one entrance/exit - the kitchen aside - where it was placed strategically near the stage. "Well," he heard his own voice say in a falsely cheerful tone. "How are you fine gentleman doing?" The door swung open, admitting a tall adolescent in, a boy with short cropped hair and a round face shaded like dark sands, and he bit his tongue when he was tempted to call for help.  
  
"You're Irish ain't you," one of the men said in the kind of conversational tone that brooked no argument when discussing whether or not the sky was preparing to rain. "One of those Irish rabbits."  
  
"Irish?" he laughed, his voice squeaking just a bit too high for comfort. "What gave you that impression?"  
  
"You're pale, you're blonde, and you just spoke Gaelic," the man informed him unkindly, as one of his somewhat burly companions cracked his knuckles forebodingly. "The Irish disease has been trying to take over our land for years, and I'll be damned if a grinning idiot takes over the stake we Italians fought for."   
  
The boy that had just entered was watching with hooded eyes, and the lanky blonde mouthed various phrases regarding the sending of help much to his futility. "Um, well, you see," he began when it grew obvious the boy was too shadowed to see his silent pleas, "I, uh, it's quite funny, actually…" Wrong line, he thought with a yelp.   
  
"He's part Sicilian," the boy offered in the back, and he started, as did everyone else in the room, blinking. Apparently the boy had seen him panicking, or he happened to be rather quick - not that it would have taken that Einstein guy to figure out he was in boiling water. The boy did have a remarkably light voice, and he squinted, trying to pierce the dark shadows with his bespectacled eyesight. "He's too tall to be Irish," the boy continued, stepping out of the light and claiming a single-seat table near where he had stood in the shadows. "Everyone knows the Irish are innately short, Mister Rodriguez, and you're Mexican, not Italian." The tone of voice slipped into humorous wry, and the boy shed the glistening, rain-streaked overcoat he was wearing, casting the heavy dust-colored cloth over the back of the small chair.  
  
The boy, he thought it worthy of noticing, was wearing a skirt that brushed peeking knees. The peeking knees of a tall boy who just happened to be a short woman, and he felt his cheeks redden in a mixture of personal embarrassment and relief. Death by angry mob was not one of his favored activities by a long shot, and, to celebrate and calm his anxiety, he quickly stuffed the remaining two rolls into his mouth. The buttery airiness did much for soothing his hastily fraying nerves.  
  
"Well," Mister Rodriguez reluctantly allowed, "he is sort of tall for an Irishman."   
  
As mutters of consent and dissent dispersed throughout the room and the chorus girls picked up their job of serenading the room with flashing skin, the small woman with bobbed midnight hair stomped over the floor. He beamed sunshine happiness at his savior, making sure to gulp the remnants of baking down his throat, and greeted her with, "Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you!" The idea of throwing himself at her feet was tempting, but he decided against it, for a variety of reasons, one of which included the very unpleasant look on her face.  
  
Two petite hands slammed on the table with surprising force and he found, to his horror, he immediately shrunk meekly into himself, nearly pulling his knees to his chest for the sheer protection. If the damn table hadn't been in the way, he would have, but the cursed length of his legs caught on the wood.  
  
"What," began the woman in the kind of voice that usually hailed before gruesome homicides, "the /hell/ are you doing in an Italian bar? Are you a complete idiot?"  
  
"I was hungry?" he offered. "I'm part Sicilian?"  
  
He came to the conclusion not much longer that he was not going to like the small woman, soft curves aside, when she gave him the sort of sharp look that questioned his sanity and ability to function in everyday life, much less his ability to breathe.  
  
--  
  
Disclaimer: According to the Surgeon General's best friend's cousin's roommate's ex-boyfriend's father's daughter's kindergarten teacher, this fic is an excellent source of Plutonium. Plutonium: it's radioactive! Unfortunately, no matter how rich in radioactive isotopes this fanfic is, it doesn't mean I own the characters in any form, manner, or way. But are you aware that, if the Internet quiz I took was accurate, I have Vash's personality? Yes, it makes eerie sense (until you consider I'm also a personality match, according to Internet tests, for Xellos Metallium and Spike Seigel, and then it makes no sense at all).  
  
Author's Notes: This is very, very late, partly due to spring break, state testing week (ha! I love state testing, it's always easy), and procrastination. I procrastinate a lot, and I apologize. Forgive me? Anyway, I got halfway through writing this last week, then stopped for some reason. John Mayer's 'Why Georgia' somehow got me to finish this little chappie up. And, yes, I know I rushed the meeting, and, yes, I know it's choppy. Yay? I'll probably edit this later in the week and repost it, because I'm not entirely satisfied with it (but I did feel I had to post something, if only to appease Ryan and his slightly psychotic tendencies). On the other hand, I /did/ write an introspective 'One Piece' fic and four parts to a 'One Piece' parody of 'The Princess Bride,' so there's always that. I think.   
  
Cultural Notes: Historically, especially in the northern part of the east coast, the Irish and Italian people have not had a fun time together. (My mum - who I used for research, bless her soul - says 'Gangs of New York' is an excellent interpretation of it.) As for their recognizing what Vash said (yes, that's Vash, even if I haven't said his name story-wise yet), if you ever hear someone who can speak Gaelic fluently just absently use a word off-handedly, you can tell they're Irish. Trust me. (For those wondering, 'aisling' translates as dream-vision and I used it out of context. So let's say Vash - who is Irish in the fic - speaks Gaelic, but not correctly in a grammar perspective.) On another subject, I referred to Nicholas as 'Nicolae Chapel' (or, rather, had the unnamed father refer to am as that). Back in the day (*grins*), it was easier to use a pseudonym and get away with it, and someone with mob connections would be more likely to use a new name (among many). I've considered the various ethnicities the characters could be in 'real life' (Italian for Wolfwood and Meryl, Irish for Vash, English for Milly, et cetera.), and I do think Wolfwood could pass as Russian (Nicolae is more or less Russian in origin). (By the way...Dominique-the-mother is not meant to be Gung-Ho Gun Dominique - it was just the name I chose. They're completely different people! ;] Or she got a new personality, either way.)  
  
Replies: I know I said I'd do it this chapter, but I don't have time at the moment. I'm really sorry, and I hope you all know each and every review means a great deal to me. :] Especially considering most people don't seem to like alternaverses as a general rule. *winks* Is it still good/decent?  
  
Chapter Three: introspective piece for Nicholas, Meryl and Vash don't get along for about a page, Milly dines with Meryl, and other things happen that I have yet to determine. Goodie! (Second…chapter…moved…too fast!)  
  
Joke: 'Painted Dreams' is considered the first soap opera ever made (it was a radio program from the early 1930's), and the cast was mostly Irish. :] 


	4. Times to Reflect

**Smash!**

by Memphis Lupine

        Inside, he wondered if it was a sign of the condition of his existence that the blood affected him so little now, but outside he was nothing but cool stone, leaning beside the body and checking the pulse.  Two dark fingers slid under the crimson-slicked chin, tilting quietly the head up so the dusty brown hair fanned over the stained alley in a tangled mess, and he blew out a small stream of grey smoke when he felt no heartbeats.  Nicholas took his hand from the dead man's neck, resting his forearm on knee and staring with clinical disinterest at the body, bloodied fingers dripping a single tiny goblet of red to the dirt he was crouching in.  "God protect your soul," he finally spoke, as if in penance, and he used the same dirtied fingers to gently prod the eyelids down over sightless black eyes.  

        He stood, foot nudging against the cold metal of the submachine gun and catching his attention briefly, and studied the mess that was the man's chest, somewhat unsettled that he felt no pity or sorrow for the deed.  Frowning, he shook his blood-traced hand and, with some effort, hoisted onto his shoulder the massive automatic weapon, thumbing the brim of his hat that it cast his dark eyes into thicker shadows.  The sun was clouded over again, having broken free in the beginning morn before being unwillingly dispatched of, and he trudged through the occasional puddles of mud lining the way through the alley back to the awkward automobile waiting silently in the street.  

        Temporarily resting the heavy weapon on the ground, letting it lean on his calf and balance precariously thusly, he worked the door open with a soft popping sound and hooked his fingers around the submachine gun again.  Nicholas pushed it into the thin back seat, the slitted windows in back streaked with faded rain and spots of staining dirt, and he swung the door shut.  It clicked into place with a muted sound and he glanced to the sky, wrinkling his nose as he tried to determine whether or not the hovering rain would ever river to the earth. 

        After a moment was wasted staring, the stiff brim of his fedora cutting sharply across the top bit of his vision, he turned, jacket swirling briefly around his waist as he moved to the ambiguous shop near the alley.  Swinging through the rough door, he plunged his hand into the pocket of his trousers, wrapping the clean fingers over an assortment of silver coins and pulling them free to rest in his clasped palm as he approached the counter.  "Cigarettes," he announced brusquely to the hollow man waiting there, counting out the appropriate change, "and some water, if you have any."  

        The bits of silver were immediately scooped into the pudgy, blank man's hand, the weight judged out of habit with an up-and-down swinging of his wrist, and he nodded to the taller man dressed in tones of darkness.  The aged cash register of glinting black exposed its drawer with a quiet ding, and the coins were shifted into their allotted spaces before the cashier slid it into its locked position, turning to grasp two pristine cartons.  He passed them over the counter and, careful to keep his bloodied hand buried within the matching sleeve, Nicholas accepted them, fitting one box into the breast pocket of his buttoned shirt and the other into his pocket.

        "A moment for the water," rasped the man behind the counter, lifting his round forefinger in unconscious example.  He forced his way through the thin area squared off by the glazed wooden counter, apron stretched to near ripping over his body as he moved, and the Italian man waiting fingered open the top of the carton in his trouser pocket.

        Drawing out one of the ivory cylinders, he dug into his other pocket, flipping open his tinderbox and, pinning the cigarette under his incisors with little effort, striking one of the matches into a whispering flame.  He held it to the cigarette's waiting, hovering end, sparking it into a puffing ember nestled in the rolled tobacco hidden within the shield of white paper, and drew in a breath of the familiar bitter tang.  A casual, uncaring glance around the place granted him naught other than what he already knew of the establishment: small, inexpensive, and verging on bankruptcy as of the past thirty years, always managing to drag itself up from its own ashes before tumbling once more.  

        The decorations were simple, shaded plaques mixed in with torn, folded photographs, and he sighed, switching his gaze to the outside world where the first coursing raindrops were slapping the display glass.  Breathing in, deeper, he closed his eyes to the remembered smoke and the acquired taste as he waited for the cashier's return, keeping his muscles still out of respect.  His mind wandered back to the dead body as of yet undiscovered in the alley, body punctured countless times by the automatic rounds the Thompson submachine delivered each time it was used.  Was he losing his humanity, then?

        "Water," the cashier's voice, like thousands of sand particles thrust through a fine grate, interrupted, and he took the perfectly round glass from the man's layered hand.  Working his hand free of the sleeve's confines, he nodded, blowing a twisting column of smoke out in warning when the man's beady eyes widened at the sight of blood.  

        He moved back to the door, knocking it open with the smudged toe of his shoe and leaning out enough that he could tip the glass over his hand, and he let the water spill away the blood dried along his fingers, though a few specks clung tenaciously beneath his fingernails.  Tapping the last few curling droplets, he glanced back at the sky a second time, seeing a drop of rain collapse to the cracked sidewalk after the passage of several paused heartbeats.  Satisfied, Nicholas ducked back into the shop, striding in strong movements of his legs to the counter and setting the glass spinning on the counter.

        As he left, twisting around the jutting front of the automobile to enter its driver's seat, pinning his fedora firmly to his head with an open palm and curving fingers, the glass wobbled.  Twirling one final time, sides shakily twining up, it slipped over, rolling in a semicircle and drawing to a shivering halt.

        She was exhibiting none of the telltale signs of leaving, and he was slowly growing aware that perhaps it might have been better had he never entered the Silver Bell in the first place.  "Are you just incredibly stupid," she stressed the word in a way that managed to make it even more insulting, "or can't you read?  This is an Italian place, in an Italian-built city, and you're Irish.  What the hell were you thinking, trying to come in here?"

        He frowned at her, tugging his lower lip into an exaggerated expression of wounded dignity and the ilk, folding his arms protectively over the empty sheaths of paper sprawled over the table before him as he grasped his pencil firmly in his grip.  "I just arrived in town last night," he explained haughtily, pausing to swallow the compressed remnant of a roll in the back of his mouth, "and I saw the sign, and I like Italian food.  I don't see how any of it happens to be your problem, anyway."

        "When someone," she hissed, leaning closer as her grey hazel eyes all but flared streaks of condemning fire at him, "manages to get almost an entire restaurant into an ethnic lust for blood, especially when the restaurant happens to be my uncle's, I think it might be my problem just as much as it is yours.  In the event that you were dumb enough to get yourself killed on the premises, my life would get just as messy."  She straightened, crossing her small arms over her chest and somehow managing to glare down her nose at him so he squirmed against his will, wrinkling his nose under the bridging metal of the glasses framing his bright emerald eyes.  "I'm still curious as to what possessed you to come in."

        He felt a spark of annoyance inside, his thin gold eyebrows edging together in ridiculous thought as he reviewed the past minute of their conversation, and he argued, "I already told you, I just got into Winchester, and I wanted to eat," he broke off.  "Food!" he cried happily in finale after a few seconds, leaping to his feet and banging his knees on the table with a loud crescendo of noise that stirred pencil, razor, paper, and basket into a clattering symphony.  "God!" he added, nearly falling to the floor as he semi-crouched, wrapping his long fingers over the wounded limbs.

        "Maria," greeted his somewhat unfriendly salvation as the tall, busty waitress returned with startled eyes and a large tray of food in tow.  Smoothing his hands over his wrinkled trousers, the sleeves of his irreversibly dirtied shirt inching up his arms with the steady, comforting motions, he unfolded to his full height and beamed at the curly-haired waitress.  The smallest of the three looked at the tray of food blankly, followed with switching her piercing gaze to the extreme thinness that was he, and proceeded to laugh.  "Did you mix an order up, Maria?" she smiled in a friendly, teasing manner.

        "I'd be more comfortable if I had," the other woman sighed truthfully, turning to slide it from her waist and elbow to the table with some effort and a nudge from her hip.  "But I asked him if he was waiting for someone, and he insisted he was alone.  After all, Dono says we ought to bring exactly what the customer asks for, no matter how foolish a thing it is."  She nodded at the memory of her introductory lecture and smacked her hands together, as if to wipe away the strain of her recent delivery, smiling at the lanky blonde.  "I'll get your wine, if you could wait just a moment, sir."

      Smiling in his most pleasant manner, he hooked his arms together at his back and leaned slightly over the speechless young woman staring blankly at the large tray now overwhelming the table.  "Would you like to share it with me, little girl?" he said cheerfully before it struck him otherwise, unclasping his hands to snatch up the customary fork and knife as he plopped back into the seat.  Resolutely ignoring the uncomfortable pain residing in his knees, he adopted an indecisive expression, the fork wavering in his hand as he flicked his eyes from one food to the next until, discarding happily both utensils, he simply grabbed one of the doughnuts.  The round bread was identical to the rolls beside it, aside from the former having been deep-fried and glazed over with a fine layer of sticky sugar, and he adeptly shoved the entire thing into his mouth.  Looking back at the girl, he smiled widely, unaware of his own abandonment of manners, and asked politely, "Well?"  Seeing as his mouth was currently full, it came out a bit more garbled than he had intended.

        "I am not a little girl!" she snapped, but reached for one of the butter-lathered rolls anyway.  Almost sulkily, she tore off a small bit of the fluffy bread, pinching it between her forefinger and thumb as she jerked her arm back.  Forcing the fraction of airy bread into her cheek and chewing it quickly, she swallowed while digging her fingers in and ripping free another bit in a manner that was eerily threatening.  "You aren't welcome here," she scowled, narrowing her slender black eyebrows over the darkening grey of her eyes, stuffing the bread pinned betwixt fingers through her lips and chewing with snapping motions.  

        "That's quite an obvious statement," he retorted through or around the two doughnuts lodged in his mouth, his words slurring into an erstwhile undecipherable blob, and he attempted his most potentially vicious look.  It was around this point that he choked, one eye widening as the other immediately shut into an involuntary winking reflex, and tears sprang with great ease to his eyelids, glittering on his eyelashes as he struggled to swallow the pastry blocking the passage of air into his body.  "Igh," he suggested helpfully as she rolled her eyes, taking a dawdling moment to squeeze the rest of her roll daintily in her mouth, and he pounded his palm on the table, eyes crossing.

        Her own palm smacked him squarely in the back, a surprisingly powerful blow from such a small woman, and he found it had cleared his mouth in a pleasant manner, enabling him to swallow the joined doughnuts and slouch in the booth with a loud sigh of relief.  Letting his limbs go numb and relatively listless, he granted her his most obnoxiously innocent smile, long fingers drumming on the tight cloth of the bench.  "Thank-you," he gasped dramatically, slapping one hand to his chest and wrinkling the fingers up into inverted arches as he twisted the cloth lying over his heart.  "Life is such a beautiful thing, you know."

        "Idiot," she snapped, and the back of her hand impacted with the back of his head, sending him into a fit of clutching at his wounded skull and teary-eyed somewhat howling.  "Finish eating and get out before you manage to do anything else to make yourself stand out," she all but ordered, tapping her fingertips around the swell of her hips as she scowled impressively, the sole of her leather shoes making a softly abrasive sound as it rubbed across the floor with her shifting movement.

        Rubbing sulkily at the back of his head, fingertips probing gingerly about the sore area hidden by his dark gold hair, he grumbled with great displeasure, "Jesus Christ, Son of Mary, you're really fussy, you know that?"  His voice ended in a heightened yelp, thrust into pained nasal tones when the knuckles of her middle and forefinger stabbed either side of his nose, quickly swinging together and effectively pinching his nose between her fingers as he worked his jaw.  Instinctively pulling away, he came to a delayed conclusion that he should not have, the ensuing hurt brought about by trying to back being one he found notably unpleasant as was probably the intended effect.

        "Don't you dare use the Savior's name in vain," she spoke in a voice he might have expected to hear in a casual discussion of the weather, though a steely undercurrent of tangible warning trickled as a spine to her words.  As if to emphasize the point she was impressing on him, her fingers tightened sharply, twisting without provocation so he was forced to stand, mouth gaping open as he emitted gasping whimpers, and she smiled very nastily at him.  He uneasily received the impression her stormy eyes were attempting to share a glowering death with him, and swallowed, making a pained sound deep in his throat in hopes she would let him free to breathe correctly.  "Do you understand?" she asked sweetly.

        "Ow, ow," he answered in a nervous voice, focusing at the end of his nose and forcing a thin smile to his face, "um, if I say yes, will you – ow!"  He stumbled back after she twisted sharply once more, and then released his nose with the faintest warning; he immediately clasped a hand to his face, feeling for any telltale signs of blood lining his lip and therefore meaning he had an unwanted nosebleed, and gave her a bizarre look, trying to read if she was by any chance partially insane.  "That hurt!" he complained softly, pulling his fingers away and peering carefully at the tips, wiggling the joints and feeling relief that there were no red specks anywhere to be seen.

        "Just get out of the way as soon as you've paid," she said shortly, twisting on her heel and marching to the long bar stretching along the wall, and he watched her leave, eyebrows knitting together in confused thought as Maria wove her way back, a small elegant bottle in her hands.

        "She's scary," he informed the waitress, taking the bottle eagerly from her and picking at the crimped seal tied resolutely around the slender neck.  She laughed in mild agreement, called by a humorously drunken man to his table in order to take his heavily inebriated order, and he rolled his head back, wriggling his facial muscles in a series of grimaces.  "Might've been more humane to just cut my head off," he muttered, staring at the dark ceiling for a few seconds before he spared a brilliant grin to the benefit of the walls, lolling his head forward.  

        Popping the cork out, he set the bottle beside his large tray of food and tugged with expensed effort to pry free the papers hidden by the light wood, shuffling them together and sliding the thin stack to the wall as he piled his other writing utensils on the faded white; he wielded his fork and stabbed the drenched noodles of his spaghetti, twirling the metal in his hand and shuffling it to his mouth, wincing slightly at the stinging heat of sauce striking his chin.

        "Meryl," Dono said with a booming laugh, cigar working to the corner of his mouth and bobbing as he eased himself out of his chair.  "How long's it been since you decided to pop in and visit your old uncle, eh?  Two weeks, now!  How am I supposed to know if my brother's baby girl is doing herself well if she doesn't come to see me?"  He offered his arms out in a swooping bear hug, crushing her in the sort of comfortable pressure that only family could do in a welcomed way, and she accepted it with a tight-lipped smile, patting him gently on his shoulder before pulling free.

        "I'd love to say I'm here to chat, Dono," she said, falling into her most business-appropriate voice, taking the polished mahogany chair across from his untidy desk and checking that her skirt was modestly tucked over her knees, "but I'm not, and hell if I'm a liar."  Her smile was thin and relatively humorless as he grinned his nasty smirk, thumbing his cigar and chewing thoughtfully at the smoldering end enclosed in his mouth.  "Papa wants me to check on the finances, just to be sure everything's going smoothly."

        Dono nodded, his greased hair shining under the bared bulb of electrical light expensively wired into the wall and more than a little discomforting to Meryl's stormy eyes after the gentle light of lamps in the dining area.  "We've been doing well enough, so far as I can figure," he spoke finally, popping his cigar from his mouth and tapping the ashen end over a small silver platter.  The ash fell like a dark snow, crumbling and dirtied by a thousand burnt embers, and collapsed with an inaudible sigh on the sleek metal scarred by past trickling falls of ash.  

        "One of the girls, though, Elizabeth Hurton, by the name of Sapphire," he continued, leaning back in his cloth-pelted chair as she inclined her head, knowing the girl, "hasn't been showing up for the odd day now and then.  Wasn't here this morning, matter of fact, and since she's been datin' the ratface Lex, we can't be too sure she'll be getting around to coming again."  He tapped his cigar a second time, as though out of habit or some sinful gesture for luck, and a few sprinkled bits of grey and black spattered like thick, ominous pepper on the smooth wood of his desk.

        "Wonderful," commented Meryl, reaching to his desk for an uneven stack of papers she knew to be related to the Silver Bell's finances and the machinations of its work process.  "Out of curiosity, though, wasn't Lex supposed to be moving out of town about a month ago?" she continued in a questioning voice that dipped into a murmur toward the end of it, her attention slipping to the responsibilities of the papers she had claimed.  She ruffled through the carefully type-writ pages, skimming short fingernails quickly and efficiently down columns and lopsided rows as she checked for any discrepancies or errors that would require deeper attention and a bit of ink to correct.

        "Not that it's any of our concern what she wants to do with her life and her body," Dono snorted carelessly, clamping his teeth firmly back over the rolled dusky brown of his fading cigar.  "If she wants to ruin a perfectly good job workin' here so she can spend her nights in his bed, so be it."  He crossed his arms over his broad chest, black suspenders stark over the white button-up cloth of his shirt, and gnawed habitually at the tobacco creation in his jaw.

        "Well, if she's being paid for a job she's not doing," Meryl started in response, shrugging and shrewdly rifling the papers back into an evened pile that she clasped loosely in one hand, "then she needs to be canned.  Otherwise she'll just be taking in money that we can use to pay someone else who will actually do her job."  She stood, kicking her heel slightly to adjust the press of her uncomfortable pumps, and ran a hand swiftly through her dark hair, every inch the mature and professional businesswoman so often portrayed in the movies.  

        "Speaking of which," her uncle began, chewing again on his cigar out of sheer reflex, "I hope you won't mind if we have to move your own number from Thursday to tomorrow evening, will you?  One of my boys booked some out-of-town dancer a coupla months ago and seeing as I just found out, I can't exactly tell her to come a few days later."

        Meryl sighed, fingering the side of her forehead in an old gesture of frayed nerves and weary thoughts, and smiled thinly once again, saying in as kind a voice as she could, "Sure, Dono, I can do my gig tomorrow night.  If anyone's looking for me, tell them I went by the Winchester, Southeast, okay?"  She turned on her heel, moving through the door of his office in the back of the Silver Bell and strolling in decisive steps toward the dark swath of her coat cast over a chair near the front door's gleaming square of light.

        "Oh, dear, I think that's checkmate, sir," Milly Saralee smiled happily, moving her rook the final shimmering square left in her turn, and the aged gentleman sitting across the small table laughed in low approval.  "Would you like to play another game with me, sir?" she asked congenially, moving the white pieces back into their set locations as he scooped together the obsidian matches, gently positioning each on the mirroring blocks.  She smiled again, satisfied with the tidy arrangement of it all, and ducked her gloved hands into her lap in a delicate fashion, every inch the lady as she had been taught by her beloved mother, her golden brown hair tied up in a simplistic coif topped by an ivory pillbox devoid of the wide brim her other hat had shown.

        "Ah, that's a lovely offer, young lady," the elderly man chuckled, standing with a little strain and reaching for his stylish hat, doffing it with a mild bow.  "Unfortunately, I fear the missus and I have an obligation we simply cannot remove ourselves from," he added and she nodded in understanding, standing as she gathered the side of her skirts together and offered her arm to his for added balance.  "Thank-you, I only need to make it to that desk just a bit up there."

        "Step carefully," she said in a serious tone, crinkling her glimmering blue eyes into a light expression that was as friendly as many a thing she did was.  "It wouldn't be very nice to hurt yourself, would it, sir?"  She shook her own head thoughtfully, answering herself with a brisk twist of her neck, the faint tendrils of hair not pinned up twirling through the air in dainty curves, and idly sidestepped a large bit of gilded luggage left sprawled limply on the richly carpeted floor.

        "Thank-you, young lady," the man laughed again, patting her shoulder as she uncurled her arm from his as he stiffly walked to the desk with his coattails turning to face her.  She smiled and waved a small farewell, moving about and letting the gauzy cloth of her pale skirt flow around her ankles, and she began aimlessly strolling through the massive, brilliantly decorated lobby.

        Knotting her hands at her back, lacy gloves curving with her fingers to the slender heels of her palms, she tilted her gaze up, flicking her eyes over the carved figures above framing the handpainted architecture.  "Oh," she sighed, pausing to smile at the delicate, sweeping tails of paint that swirled to form the biblical scene so gently, dreamily waiting along the alabaster ceiling, "how lovely.  Mama will just be so very envious when I write home."  The thought of her family made her even brighter inside, nearly radiating from her creamy skin as she envisioned the rough-and-tumble southern homestead that was the Thompson plantation, and she nodded her head cheerfully.  A solitary golden strand picked free of her pinned coif and brushed lightly around her ear, a glittering testimony to the beautiful things that could be woven from simplicity.        

        As she picked her way carefully back to the elegant booth she had reclined with the elderly gentleman, happily and kindly engaging him in a wonderful little bout of chess games and ever-shifting pieces, she heard a strong female voice and hesitated.  Blinking innocently and unfolding her hands to lay a finger cutely on her chin, she turned to see with wide blue eyes over her shoulder, peering around the sophisticated women and dashing men milling about.  "Yes, hello?" she called in honest reply to the voice speaking her name.  "I'm Milly!"  She pointed idly to herself, standing on her tiptoes as if she were not tall enough to be easily spied already.  "Are you there, ma'am?"

        "Oh, for heaven's sake, Milly," a familiar voice grumbled as a small woman in an oversized coat and a mature skirted outfit stumbled from a hazy crowd of gaily smoking women in thick furs and glittering gowns, "I'm not a ma'am to you."  She straightened her back, smoothing her sleek black hair in the fashionable bob cut just so to frame her swarthy heart-shaped face, and smiled gently at the swelling beam of a smile on the southern woman's sturdier face.  "Have you enjoyed Winchester so far?"

        "Meryl!" she cried, sweeping her into a happy hug and backing away to continue beaming in a wonderfully engulfing manner.  "I didn't think I'd see you as early as this morn, not at all."  Milly was the image of a tall, rather broad-shouldered cherub, with the sort of husky handsome beauty that was rarely seen in the English bloodlines, as small and delicate as they tended to be.  "That," she added quickly, as a mildly worried look crossed her face, "isn't to say I'm not gloriously delighted or anything, Meryl, but this is such a lovely surprise!"  She fairly clapped her hands with her joy, looking every inch the child though she was physically a woman in all ways.

        "I'm sure," Meryl remarked wryly, glancing about for a seat and, when finding none, simply stood in as relaxed a position as she could.  "Wait, didn't my brother drive you here?" she then asked, momentarily confused as she tried to catch the untied thread that was lurking in their beginning conversation.  "Nicholas Wolfwood?"

        "Oh, are you the same Wolfwood family?" asked Milly innocently, lifting a hand to protectively cup her pillbox hat, as though the breeze of the doors being tugged open might blow it away for a blithe eternity.  "Well, your brother was a very kind man," she nodded, eyes crinkling shut just so in an assuring expression, "and I'd love to meet him again.  

        "Did you know," she continued cheerfully, tucking Meryl's arm under hers and pluckily escorting her to the deep, royally crimson plush chairs in the gilded lobby, "that he was so very sweet as to drive me all the way up here from lower Maryland?  I'd missed my bus, and I hadn't even a penny on me after I paid for my bit of cheesecake, and he gallantly offered to take me to my hotel!  I'd missed my bags, though, and so I was prepared to adjourn to my room without anything else to wear, but did you know the driver was waiting for me?"  

        She would have continued to happily speak had Meryl not given her an insistent tug on her arm, giving her reason to pause and lightly step back one pace, curiously watching the grave expression on the smaller woman's face.

        "Be careful around my brother, Milly," Meryl said softly, "because not everything is what it seems."  As Milly digested this thought, an unexpected twist that had her bewildered and a bit foggy as to why it had been shared, the dark-haired woman suddenly smiled, a mature exposure of pale teeth in a pale brown face.  "There was this incredible idiot at the Silver Bell this morning," she began, picking up the lead where her much taller friend had abandoned it, "with hair like a broom.  I mean, really, this man couldn't possibly have been any stupider…"

----

**Disclaimer:**  Alas, I still don't own them.  I do own all the assorted (and quite few) original characters, much to my dismay, for if they offend anyone, I'm stuck with all the blame.  At least they're mostly various extras, right?

**Author's Notes:**  Again, my sincerest apologies for the lateness in this coming.  First I was swallowed whole by the One Piece fandom, and then I entered a  lovely obsession with Treasure Planet (which has yet to abate), and I managed to peck out a little bit on this part every week until I finally managed to finish it.  I owe a great deal to my having just arrived in Egypt for the next two months and, what with trying to adjust to jetlag and not really having much to do just yet, I had plenty of time to sit down and finish.  Forgive me?

**Thanks (in order, and all of 'em):**  arbitrary, Quincy007, nosekizzie, Vash-chan AKA Makoto Almasy, EmpressGalaxia, PT-chan, EmpressGalaxia, Vash-chan AKA Makoto Almasy, nosekizzie, Arafel, Quincy007, liliduh, Vash-chan AKA Makoto Almasy, PT-chan, Quincy007, Numena, Hardy, Winter Shmoe, and sailorjr5.  All of your comments mean a lot to me, so thanks to all.  ^^

**Shameless Advertisement:** Visit www.faniac.com.  They're starting a bimonthly anime fanfic/fanart magazine and are welcoming submissions.  It looks to be awesome!  ^-


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